


"Don't you die on me."

by peachb0mber



Category: MCSM, Minecraft Story Mode
Genre: F/F, Possible Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7100716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachb0mber/pseuds/peachb0mber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt list <a href="http://theprincessjessi.tumblr.com/post/136292664566/i-used-a-random-number-generator-to-pick-one-of">here</a>.</p><p>Original fic post <a href="http://theprincessjessi.tumblr.com/post/136267579521/the-drabble-game">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Don't you die on me."

Dragging Petra along on the final stretch of the fight was wrong, Jesse knows now. She knows she should have never let Petra leave that cave no matter how much the redhead fought and swore she was fine enough to fight. She knows Olivia was right when she said that if Petra didn’t stop, she might be in even more danger. And yet Jesse still allowed Petra to come.

Standing atop the wall of Ivor’s ridiculous maze, Jesse keeps an eye on Petra, who’s walking through with Olivia and Reuben. She uses the height to her advantage, trying to lead them out and away from monsters. Soren and Gabriel have been out of sight since they first climbed over the walls of the maze, and she can only hope they’re okay.

“I think it’s this way,” she calls down to the trio, gesturing for them to follow.

“You’ve said that like four times now, Jesse,” Olivia replies with a deep sigh. “We’re never going to find the way out of here.”

“Not with that attitude! C’mon, we’re almost there,” the brunette says in the most upbeat voice she can manage. She can see how far the maze stretches, and they are nowhere close to the exit. But they don’t need to know that.

Petra has only gotten paler since they left the cave, relying heavily on Olivia to stay standing. It fills Jesse with dread every time she looks, but it also drives her to keep moving. She can’t give up, won’t give up, not while Petra needs her.

Petra mutters something to Olivia, who nods in agreement. Reuben oinks in rebuttal, but Jesse is too engaged in finding the way out to notice Petra calling her bluff down below.

Jesse hits a dead end and her shoulders droop, crestfallen. “I guess this wasn’t the right way…” She looks behind her, to a walkway a few feet away that goes north into another tangle of paths. Inside the maze, the path only goes north from the dead end and straight back the way they came. She sighs. “I think we have to–”

Olivia yelps suddenly, shocking Jesse so badly that she almost tumbles off the wall. “Jesse!” she cries in alarm, one arm wrapped around Petra’s waist and the other pointing towards a mob of zombies lumbering towards them. Even Petra looks scared, an unfamiliar panic seizing her, and she weakly pulls Olivia towards the north path.

“Go, go!”

Jesse’s hands embed themselves in her hair, breathing quickening almost to hyperventilating. Heights have never bothered her, but the ground starts to twist unnaturally beneath her. She curses shakily, squeezes her eyes shut, and sits on the edge of the wall. She counts, one, two, three, opens her eyes, and drops to the ground.

The impact rattles her bones and almost breaks her ankles, but she falls onto her knees as the breath rushes out of her all at once. She hears Reuben, faintly, squealing, and it brings her to her senses enough to climb to her feet and run after them.

Jesse appears on Petra’s left, joining Olivia as her support. Her sword is in her left hand, trembling so bad she doesn’t even know how she’s still holding it. Both girls exclaim her name in surprise at her abrupt appearance. Jesse tells them to shut up and run.

So they do, taking whichever turn they see first. They go left and into a couple of skeleton archers, then spin to take a southern path. A few seconds later, a witch rounds the corner in front of them and lobs a potion in their direction. Olivia breaks away from the chain of people to dive out of the way, crashing to the ground as the witch advances. Jesse lets go of Petra and swings her sword at the back of the witch. It connects, but the stone sword decides that its role is fulfilled and cracks in half. Jesse yells in frustration and chucks the half in her hand at the witch.

“Olivia, go!” Petra shouts as the witch turns on her and Jesse, but Olivia hesitates, eyes wide with fear. The witch rounds on Olivia again and she bolts down the hall and hangs a right. Reuben scampers after her, dodging a potion from the witch.

Jesse screams again in outrage. She pulls an apple out of her inventory, first thing she touches, and throws it at the witch with all her might. She probably would have fought the witch with her bare hands had Petra not grabbed her hand and dragged her down a path going north. Jesse hooks Petra’s arm over her shoulder and they take all the turns they come across in an attempt to lose the witch.

Eventually, Petra falls into a coughing fit and they stop, settling down in the middle of a hallway. There’s a path in front of them, allowing them to see three different ways, three different possible escape routes.

Jesse’s tempted to spend five minutes punching a hole into the wall if it means getting Petra somewhere even marginally safer, but her arms and legs feel like jello and all she can do is sink onto the floor beside her companion.

Somewhere from running to sitting, they’ve gone from Jesse supporting Petra’s weight to both clutching each other’s hand for dear life. Petra’s heaving from coughing, and Jesse’s knees are pulled to her chest, head down on them.

When Petra’s coughing finally ceases and she’s caught her breath, Jesse speaks. “I-I’m so s-sorry, Petra.” Her eyes are clamped shut, tears threatening to fall if she opens them.

Petra’s grip on her hand tightens. “Hey, don’t you dare start blaming yourself,” she says firmly, head resting against the wall. She takes in another ragged breath. “I know what I can handle. I can handle this.”

Something in Jesse snaps and she rips her hand away from Petra’s, brown eyes glaring into darker ones. Her eyes are filled with tears, angry and desperate and scared. “No, you can’t, Petra! Do you even hear yourself? You can barely b-breathe, much less keep r-running like this! You should have stayed in that s-stupid cave!” Her voice catches on the end, overrun with a sob, and she bangs her fist on the wall with no real force behind it.

Petra, too stunned by the outburst to speak for a moment, shifts to face Jesse head-on. The brunette is staring fiercely at the ground, grinding her teeth together to stop crying because she hates crying in front of anyone, especially tough-as-nails Petra. “Jesse–”

“I can’t–We can’t lose you, Petra. W-we need you,” Jesse says quietly, raising her gaze to meet Petra’s. “You’re running yourself into the dirt and I’ve been letting you and I’m so sorry Petra I just didn’t want to leave you alone–” A hand covers her mouth, ending her rambling.

“Stop it. That’s enough. This isn’t your fault or anyone else’s,” Petra says, letting her hand fall. “It’s mine, and I know that. But come on, Jesse, you’ve known me for how long? You know I won’t sit around waiting for someone else to do the work for me.” She intertwines her fingers with Jesse’s. “We’re a team. We do this together.”

Now it’s Jesse turn to be speechless, racking her brain for anything to say, to argue that it’s not Petra’s fault either, but she knows in the end that Petra would continue arguing and they’d never get anywhere. So she nods instead. “Together.”

Petra grins before lunging forward with a cry as if she’d been hit from the back. Glass shatters in time with her yelp and Jesse looks over Petra’s head, alarmed, to see that a witch, possibly the witch from earlier, has found them, sneaking up while their guard was down. Her heart stops and she looks frantically back at Petra, who’s clutching her head with her hands and hissing in pain.

Jesse scrambles to her feet and moves to block Petra from the witch, very aware of her own lack of defense and inventory of useless items. She prepares to do something risky, but necessary, as the witch raises another potion. The sound of Petra falling over draws Jesse’s attention back to her with a shriek, and glass breaks again. Jesse doesn’t feel any pain, but she drops to her knees beside Petra, who’s curled into a ball and coughing violently.

“Jesse!” A male voice shouts, and two pairs of footsteps run towards the downed girls. Soren’s face comes into view beside her, kneeling next to them, and Gabriel appears very quickly after, sword in hand.

Eyes wide and wild, Jesse snaps her gaze up to Soren. “Help her, please, Soren, do something, I can’t–I don’t know what to do, Soren,” she babbles almost incoherently, tears rising back up to the surface, clinging to Petra’s hand with both of her own.

Olivia and Reuben come barreling down the hallway from one of the other paths, alerted by the sounds of fighting and yelling. She gasps their names and Reuben squeaks in unison, coming to a halt in front of them. “Oh no…” Olivia’s hands cover her mouth.

“Shut up, Olivia! W-we can fix her, we can do some-something, right, Soren?” Jesse pleads, eyes on him.

Soren’s face looks grim. He pulls something out of his pocket. “I found this in the maze, but I don’t know what it does.”

The words are barely out of his mouth before Jesse makes a grab for the potion. Soren jerks it away from her and her fingertips graze the glass. “Give it to me!” she demands angrily, one hand still grasping Petra’s. Petra’s coughing has dissolved into ragged breaths and her entire body is shaking. There are tears rolling down her cheeks from the pain. No one moves for several seconds.

“Give it!”

Olivia plucks the potion from Soren’s hands as Jesse tries to snatch it again. Jesse’s expression goes from angry to betrayed to plaintive. “Olivia, let me have it, please.”

“Jesse, we don’t know what this potion does! Petra might have a chance if we leave it be, this might make everything worse,” Olivia tries to reason, but she’s gone pale as well, panic written across her face. “Maybe if we just–”

Petra seizes up, erupting into another coughing fit that echoes down the hallway. Her hands leaves Jesse’s to cover her mouth, but Jesse sees the blood smeared across her face.

“Olivia!” she says desperately, a sob escaping her. She’s shaking almost as much as Petra, tears obscuring her vision.

Olivia throws caution to the wind at Jesse’s tone and rips the cork out of the bottle, dumping the contents of the splash potion onto Petra. A hush falls over the group as Petra’s coughing eases up.

Minutes pass without other change. Her body still shakes, her eyes remain shut, face twisted in a grimace, hands on the back of her head. The sheer sorrow and disappointment is palpable.

“Don’t you die on me, P-Petra.” Jesse can hardly talk through her tears, but she forces the words out. “You–you said the storm wouldn’t t-take you. I c-can’t lose you, Petra, I need you,” her voice cracks and she goes silent, too overwhelmed to continue.

Reuben whines and gently butts Petra’s head with his. She stirs slightly, which is enough to bring back a shred of hope. A few moments later, the coughing stops completely and her breathing becomes less shallow. Then her body relaxes, fists uncurling, shivers ceasing. Olivia whispers her name is disbelief, and one eye slowly opens, then the other. Petra squints up at them, the faint light of the undergound enough to send spikes of pain into her head. The Wither sickness still creeps along her skin, but the poisoning brought by the witch has vanished, leaving only a throbbing headache behind.

“W-what’s…up, guys?” Her voice is small and scratchy, but it sends Olivia, Jesse, and Reuben into overjoyed cheering. Olivia dances in place while Reuben runs circles around her, and Jesse’s scrubbing away tears through her laughter. Soren and Gabriel, the onlookers, the outsiders, exchange relieved looks.

Petra struggles to sit up amongst the celebrating, Jesse moving to help her immediately. Petra lets her and, when her back’s against the wall, she takes a deep breath like she’s preparing to say something. Everyone tunes in to listen, and Petra looks from Gabriel, to Soren, to Reuben, to Oliva. “Thanks,” she manages, “for saving us.” Gabriel and Soren nod, replying with “of course” and “anytime.” Olivia rubs the back of her neck, smiling shyly, and apologizes for not giving her the potion sooner. Petra waves it off. Her eyes fall on Jesse last.

Jesse’s eyes are red from crying, but the smile on her face is so full of relief and happiness that Petra momentarily forgets what she was going to say. She reels her wit back in and puts on a smug grin. “So…you need me, huh?”

Another half-laugh, half-sob bubbles out of Jesse’s throat and she throws her arms around Petra as carefully as she can manage.

“Yeah. I do.”


End file.
